BioCentury
ARTICLE | Distillery Therapeutics

Therapeutics: CD52; T cell receptor (TCR)

August 20, 2015 7:00 AM UTC

Mouse studies suggest chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that lack CD52 and endogenous TCR could treat lymphoma. Endogenous TCR on CAR T cell therapies reduces cell survival in vivo and can cause graft-versus-host-disease (GvHD). In mice, human T cells engineered with knockout of CD52 and TCR produced lower incidence of GvHD than unmodified T cells, and in peripheral circulation, the double-knockout T cells survived longer than the unmodified T cells. In a mouse model of CD19-positive and CD52-positive Burkitt's lymphoma, anti-CD19 CAR T cells with double-knockout of CD52 and TCR and alemtuzumab decreased tumor growth compared with either agent alone. Next steps could include engineering clinical anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapies with CD52/TCR double-knockout and testing them in animal models of lymphoma...